Santa Rosa Symphony’s growing impact on Sonoma County schools gained increased support from long-time supporter Clover Sonoma, which has become the naming sponsor for two vital, community music education programs. The Symphony announces the renamed Clover Sonoma Free Concerts for Youth on February 8, 2018 and Clover Sonoma IGNITE! Concerts on May 3, 2018.

This strengthened partnership represents a deepened commitment to our community by both organizations. For more than a decade, Clover Sonoma has been a generous supporter of music education, specifically supporting inspirational and engaging concerts for elementary students, for the last several years.

Clover Sonoma’s increased sponsorship coincides with the Symphony’s unprecedented 35% growth in its educational outreach through innovative new initiatives. IGNITE! provides curricular materials and training to public school teachers, who are not music teachers, at no cost, to help them fulfill English, music and science state standards. These lessons culminate in a free, collaborative performance that invites students to join in the music making by playing recorders or singing from their seats. Both Free Concerts for Youth and IGNITE! seek to foster a connection to classical music and live performance in our young people, empowering their engagement with an art form to which they might otherwise not be exposed. Six free, interactive performances, including four sponsored by Clover Sonoma, reach 7,700 students and teachers per year and feature the Symphony’s professional orchestra or award-winning youth orchestras at the world-class Green Music Center.

With Sonoma County public schools in great need of music education, the Santa Rosa Symphony bridges the gap in fine arts instruction, in and out of the classroom, through a diverse range of free to low-cost music exploration and training programs that currently serve 30,000 students annually. The Symphony is committed to inspiring transformative personal and social change by creating greater access to music education and live performance in Sonoma County, where thousands of students now listen to classical music in the classroom and attend free performances of professional musicians during school assemblies—and at the world-class Green Music Center.